This invention relates in general to apparatus for stripping insulation from cables and, in particular, to a small, light-weight, hand-held, pneumatically powered apparatus for stripping insulation from electrical cables. This invention is especially related to such apparatus for removing strip-wrapped heat-sealed insulation from electrical cables.
Kapton insulation is increasingly used in control signal cables in military and aerospace applications becuase it is hard, strong, and chemically and thermally resistant. Typically, the Kapton insulation is double-twist-wrapped and heat sealed. In cable manufacture, this insulation must be removed from the cable ends. The force required to strip the insulation can be well over twenty pounds on a five-inch production sample.
Currently, the following procedure is used to strip the cable. Because the Kapton is notch-sensitive, the cable insulation is first scored around the circumference. The cable is then flexed by hand to break the insulation at the score lines. The stripping is then completed by pulling the segment to be removed from the end of the cable by hand stripping or by a heavy, bulky, pneumatic clamp tool. The clamp tool is practical for stripping one end of the cable before it has been incorporated into a cable assembly. However the apparatus is too cumbersome to use at assembly tables. Hand stripping uses rubber pads or tubes to facilitate manual gripping of the cable. Although this method is usually fast and inexpensive, some cable insulation is wrapped too tightly to be removed by hand. In addition, the repeated gripping and pulling may cause muscular strain and tendonitis in the personnel performing the operation.